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the Egyptian government issuing a press release on Sunday saying that the army has "achieved a scientific breakthrough by inventing systems for diagnosing hepatitis and AIDS without any need to take a sample of blood from the patient". The claims went further, with the C-Fast device supposedly capable not just of diagnosing, but also treating the diseases

Egypt has the highest rate of hepatitis C in the world, with around 20% of people either suffering or having recovered from the disease according to the World Health Organisation. Sunday's announcement has caused a stir, with a video of the inventor being shared 12,000 times on Facebook and an ongoing Twitter discussion under the hashtag "Virus C miracle". A few of the tweets were supportive of the government, but what is striking is that the majority were satirical and questioned the science. "There is no such thing as secret military reports in medicine," TV presenter Khalid Muntasir told his 20,000 Twitter followers. "For a medical discovery to be recognized and be declared as such, it must be revealed to the public."

One user tweeted: "I suggest you inject Al-Sisi with the virus and then cure him using the army's invention as means to inaugurate it and prove its efficacy."

Speaking of Syria, comparisons between its civil war and the situation in Ukraine dominate commentary throughout the Middle East. "At a time when the drums of war are beating in Ukraine and the Crimea Peninsula, the Russians should note that they should not vote for the death of diplomacy because they won the Syrian crisis with the same trump card," writes Jalal Barzegar in Iran's conservative daily Iran. "If diplomacy backs down in the face of militarism, or in fact be forced to retreat, its consequences will not be limited to Ukraine; it will rather affect the international atmosphere." He argues: "Russia's insistence on going down the same road could have unpredictable consequences for Crimea, other areas in Ukraine and even other parts of the world such as Syria." Yosef Mowlai in the reformist Iranian daily Sharq also draws comparisons to Iraq and Afghanistan, predicting that things aren't going to end well for the Russians. "The main concern of Russian officials is not international law; rather it is their country's security in its own backyard which comes at the expense of ignoring the independence and sovereignty of other nations," he writes. "It seems that the Russian Federation has not learned enough from its costly defeat in Afghanistan and has not learned from America's struggle in Afghanistan and Iraq's quagmire. Russia has made another serious mistake and got involved in a dangerous game again."

Khamis al-Tubi in Oman's Al-Watan detects what he sees as an anti-Russian "Zionist" conspiracy.

Could Syria and Ukraine be horse-traded in some sort of geopolitical diplomatic deal? Urayb al-Rintawi in Jordan's Al-Dustur doesn't think so. "Some people think there is a chance of trading Syria for Ukraine if the Kremlin were to abandon Al-Assad in return for Washington and Brussels's abandonment of their allies in Kiev and vice versa," he writes. However, such a trade-off is not possible because in America's strategic calculations, Syria is relegated to bottom position compared to Ukraine."

"The internet has revolutionised political life in Egypt," comments Mustafa Kamel al-Sayyid, a politics professor at the American University in Cairo. "It's a tool enabling opposition groups, particularly those who are subject to suppression by the government, to communicate with their members and co-ordinate activities."

with only 13 million internet users in a population of 80 million, he worries the medium has its limits. "The rest of the population still isn't reached," Mr Maher points out. "We need to find ways to reach the street. The ruling party is allowing internet use while it oppresses any opposition presence in the streets because it doesn't see the internet as a real threat."